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Friday, April 8, 2011

Organization

Do other authors have trouble keeping all their writing ideas together? I have 4-5 stories partially written at any given time--over the years, I've started several books, then gotten busy with other projects and not gone back to them. Sometimes I get back "into" a story for a while and jot some notes, and I usually scribble some stuff down when I'm first planning.

The book I'm working on now required quite a few pages of notes on certain characters, plus I've learned I do best if I write down at least the outline for a scene when I'm thinking about it, and then writing the events (by typing them) goes much smoother. So I've got all these papers, all over the place. Lists of goals, motivations, conflicts, events, time lines for a couple of the books... and they've kinda been scattered on a clipboard, in my laptop bag, a file in the file cabinet.

I really couldn't take it any more, because every time I got thinking about a story and wanted to go review what I had, I'd need to go digging in all 3 or 4 places to find those notes. So I created a "system" for myself. (looking at the photo, I'm sure it doesn't seem all that original, LOL) Each of the 5 sections in the notebook is for a different story, and each section has its own pocket for me to stick loose pages that belong with it.

The pen is very important, too. And when hubby swiped my other one in that color, I had to go buy a new pack of G2s just for that shade... I mean, it needed to match with what I'd been working on, right? Different color would just destroy the continuity of the whole book!

1 comment:

I have a folder labeled "Project Ideas" and anything and everything goes in there. Every new idea gets a document, usually labeled "Untitled" with a number next to it. I think I have over 20. When I need a new idea, I go there. Whenever I think of something new, it gets a document. Whenever I think of something, it gets added to the document.

So far it's worked well. I love when the untitled documents have a number missing...it means one has been pulled out and made into a real story and has been filed somewhere else!

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Piper Denna and Autumn Piper - both authors of women's fiction - team up to deliver industry news, glimpses into the havoc of a writer's mind, book reviews, and our insights on life in general. Hopefully we'll entertain you in the process.

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